United States v. 1,679 Firearms, 87,983 Rounds of Ammunition

MEMORANDUM

This civil in rem forfeiture case is before us for a second time. We previously remanded this case to the district court to conduct a new analysis under the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment. See United States v. Ferro (Ferro 7), 681 F.3d 1105, 1114-17 (9th Cir. 2012). The district court did so and concluded that claimant Maria Ferro (“Maria”) was entitled to a 20% remission of the forfeiture of a firearm collection worth $2.55 million—that is, the district court ruled that an 80% forfeiture of the firearm collection, or $2,04 million, was not an unconstitutionally excessive fine. Maria appealed, and the government cross-appealed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we vacate and remand.

I

Both Maria and the government contend that the district court erred in its exces- siveness analysis in various ways. We agree with each party in part.

1. In our first opinion, we held that the district court’s excessiveness analysis was flawed because it considered only the extent to which a forfeiture of the firearm collection would be unconstitutionally excessive given the conduct that subjected the firearms to forfeiture, to wit, Robert Ferro’s…